Noomi Rapace stars on DEK’s first digital-only cover for issue 08.
Photography by Daniella Midenge.
Constellation really feels like eight hours of cinema; we had the muscles to really explore and make it as good as we wanted, so it felt like a big studio film rather than TV.
Noomi Rapace made her screen debut at the age of seven, going on to become an award-winning actor in Scandinavian cinema and theatre. After her performances as Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish Millennium trilogy brought her to international notice, she became a regular presence in American film and television, and is currently starring in Apple TV+’s conspiracy thriller series Constellation.
Rapace tends to be drawn to psychologically complex characters, from a fervently religious scientist in Prometheus (2012) to the vengeful villain of last year’s TV western, Django (“She’s really fucking dark, but I loved her”). She has recently learnt the importance of taking a break after playing such demanding roles. “One would think that it gets easier, but it doesn’t really; you allow someone else to move in and basically exist in you for a certain amount of time. Now I know I need to take two weeks off, and just allow myself to be a weirdo.” During that time, she will immerse herself in her twin loves of film and hip-hop. “Today is Friday, and today is my happy day because it’s all the new releases on Spotify. Hip-hop for me is storytellers, like Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole. I love Tyler, the Creator; I love André 3000. Giggs is a good friend of mine, and he’s just fucking OG. I just feel they are like punk today because they tell the unfiltered truth about what’s going on. I feel like hip-hop and rap music might be the most honest music genre, at least for myself.”
While her day frequently starts with music, it will usually finish with a film. “Last night I ended my day watching a brilliant film, Silver Haze. It’s a Dutch director, Sacha Polack, but it takes place in England. Vicky Knight is the lead, and it’s just a beautiful, beautiful piece of acting. I was in tears. I live for this, you know. This is my oxygen, coming off an intense shoot: I go into my little cocoon, and just start watching other people’s work, and that becomes my bridge out of my own bubble, coming back to the world and communicating again. But I can’t really be too social the first two weeks after I come off something.”
So when the script for Constellation arrived just as she finished filming Django, Rapace was determined to have nothing to do with work. But her team were insistent that she should at least take a look. “I was like, ‘OK, I’ll read a couple of pages – I’ll read it next week.’ And then I started reading a couple of pages, it became twenty pages, thirty pages … I was like, ‘I cannot put this down.’” Bypassing the conventional channels, Rapace contacted the scriptwriter Peter Harness directly only to discover that he was living in a Swedish village just thirty minutes from the farm where she grew up. They got on immediately and by the time director Michelle MacLaren joined the call, it was a done deal. “The three of us just had this beautiful hour-and-a-half conversation, and I said, ‘OK, I’m in. It was a decision that just came from my heart and how deeply I connected with Michelle, Peter, and Jo the character.”
Rapace was already a great admirer of MacLaren’s work on episodes of Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul and Game of Thrones, and Constellation unites the narrative depth of such complex TV with the spectacle of cinema. “It’s sort of like our medium now has just conquered another space: we have more time to tell a story. But I will say that Constellation really feels like eight hours of cinema; we had the muscles to really explore and make it as good as we wanted, so it felt like a big studio film rather than TV.” Combining elements of science fiction and conspiracy thriller, it tells the tale of returning astronaut Jo Ericsson, a part that Rapace immediately felt could have been written for her. It’s the kind of intelligent storytelling that she enjoys as a viewer too. “There’s so much going on. And I love that because a lot of the things I read, or when I watch things, I just feel, ‘Do you think I’m stupid?’ The audience is not stupid. And I like it when I feel it’s something to figure out.” Her favourite films are those like Memento and Inception, with strong characters and intricate plots that demand multiple viewings, which reflect Rapace’s own perspective on life. “Life is science fiction; life is fucking weird. So many times I thought I knew what life was, and then I was like, ‘Wait, what? No, I don’t know shit.’ I feel the older I get, the more I feel I don’t know. I would say my life many times has felt like I’m living in a movie that is science fiction mixed with drama.”
Discover the full editorial with Noomi in print in issue 08. Pre-order here from Monday 4th March.
Constellation is now available on Apple TV+. Watch the official trailer below.
